Columbus Regional Health, through Southeastern Indiana Medical Holdings, a CRH holding company, purchased the 20.7-acre former Clarion Hotel property on July 17, 2017, for $4.25 million. The building, which sustained major flood damage in 2008, was later demolished.
CRH used rubble from the building and debris from the Indiana Department of Transportation’s I-65 expansion project to raise the property above flood level.
Hospital officials have said in the past that the former Clarion site was purchased to better serve the city’s west side, but the FairOaks Mall project has, in some ways, altered plans for the site.
In 2018, the city of Columbus and Columbus Regional Health, with some help from the Heritage Fund, purchased the 35.36-acre FairOaks Mall property at 25th Street and Central Avenue.
The purchase was driven by the idea of turning the mall into a community wellness, recreation and sports center, while also determining new potential uses for the Donner Center and connectivity with surrounding areas.
Both CRH projects resumed this week after largely being put on hold amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
CRH officials said that their decision to purchase Garden City farm acreage in 2018 has also impacted the “original scale and scope” of services planned for the Clarion site.
“It triggered us to say, ‘We’re going to scale back probably what we do on 46W, the former hotel site. So what do we do with the rest of the property?’” Bickel said.
He added that the Garden City Farm property is separate from the Clarion site project.
“Both the mall and the State Road 46 West project I would describe as more immediate and near-term solutions for our growth and space needs,” Bickel said. “The farm property is a much longer-term vision, if we start thinking about where ultimately, potentially, a new health campus would be in our community. That’s where we’re envisioning that.”
The future of State Road 11 will likely have implications for the Garden City farm property, he added, so they will likely wait and see what happens with that before launching a project.
